Now you can comment anonymously!

I've been trying to tinker around with the blog a bit to make it better but the best I've come up with so far is that now anyone who wants to talk smack about me (or anything) on this site can do so without fear of me tracking them down and shaking their hand in the street... eh... like a dog... a well-trained one.

At the moment I have more fingers than readers - but nonetheless, make yourselves known! Anonymously? Well no - sign it... or not... or whatever. What you do is click on the little thing that says "Comments" at the bottom-right of the blog and then libel yourself all the way to court! It's great!

At the moment I'm trying to teach Quasi-Mojo to use a keyboard - which he finds difficult - or rather he finds easy because he just uses his fists - but what i mean is I find it difficult to read which I suppose is a slightly different issue. His spelling isn't the best either, but feck it. He says he'll try and write something for you all soon if we get the time.

Dave Lynch is a superstar by the way (no favouritism intended I know he's not the only one out there - really though someone had to say it).

And so this is Christmas...

...and what have you done?

Sorry didn't mean to spook you there. Relax. It's not Christmas.

It might as well be though (ever noticed how that phrase makes no grammatical sense?)- the weather is cold, I'm looking at my bank statements and wondering why I don't have more money, and I'm also thinking about my New Year's Resolutions.

Now that I have been accepted to the Honorable Society of King's Inns, I'll be a busy little bunny with lots to do, whose often known to look at his watch and soliloquy about his lateness for his date. I probably won't have a date though - I'll just be late for work (assuming employment) or class.

Hmmm. My feelings about my prospective busy-ness (and business) are somewhat mixed.

So my 'new year' is going to look very different from my 'old year.' And like God, I will probably look on my creation and see that it is 'good'. And also like God, I will see that it's not entirely flawless and actually a fairly tricky business.

But I'm quite happy that my plans are beginning to come together and I'll soon be out of this place.

BTW, just because I'm having a little yuletide moment, it doesn't mean (as some people thought) that you can ask for presents.

As for the weekend

I very pleasently had the excuse of playing tour-guide to thank for among other things, the company of an engaging, effervescent, (and a long list of other compliments besides) woman from Hong-Kong and a visit to the IMMA - both of which are rare treasures to me (with the latter being almost entirely my own fault unfortunately).What this leads me to muse on here for public consumption are two things:

Firstly, I would like to recommend all and sundry - excepting those who are suffering emotionally (particularly depression) - to visit the exhibits of Sophie Calle and Margherita Manzelli in the Irish Museum of Modern Art. I've been impressed, intrigued and disgusted by art many times, but so far as I remember, I haven't had anything run amock in my head and confound me like the paintings by Manzelli. I wouldn't be telling you much by describing what they look like, so i will say rather that they have this strange familiarity about them like they are from a dream one forgot one had. And utterly shocking for reasons I can't quite understand. Even if I do count up the weird things about them that account for the powerful effect they have, it still does nothing to shed light on how such devices appealed to the mind of the artist. It's really exceptional. As for Calle, her stuff isn't at all as mysterious - one knows exactly why and how it illicits the reaction it does. Neither I nor my adopted tourist for the day could actually 'do' all of the exhibit - which is either a detracting aspect of her work or a sign that we are lightweights and need to do some arty bulking-up (yes- the latter is most likely). Well worth a visit though.

So secondly; so-called 'Irish' Culture. To be honest, I was embarrassed (and noticabley so) by what I saw in terms of Irish Song and Dance. I would compare it to someone judging 'Irish Food' by what they were given on their flight over or something like that. One difference though is that there is no hype when you get your unopenable bag of peanuts and your fizzy drink that's as much aluminium can as it is beverage. In contrast (and now I have to adit it was a weak metaphor to begin with), what I saw in the city centre yesterday was so proud of it's contrivance that I had flashbacks to Vegas - where I will say with my hand on my heart you will see something closer to Irish song and dance than I did in 'The Bridge' and the 'Arlington Hotel' on Saturday. Sadly - and very very sadly though - there is little in the way of alternative.

Hmmm. I'm ranting like a retiree. Enough. Think I've got the bones of what will be an overly wordy (yes it is possible) letter to the editor of the Irish Times in that paragraph.

Mares

Last night I had disturbing dreams. A friend I've known from the age of five was so deeply upset with me that he resorted to abuse and harrassment. This was not all. There was plenty more besides. But the morning rush and the extra-experiential nature of dreams conspire to fuzz-up the memory. Quite apart from the slight stomach upset of the weekends festivities - which I'm happy to report were considerable - related issues were also on my mind. The dynamics of friendship are not only complex. They are ever-changing.

It's interesting how one person or image can take the place of another or a number of others in a dream. The actions of the friend in this dream were not his. They were another's, but still I have been concerned over the last week that we had an unnecessary and needlessly exaggerated difference of opinion very late one night and I don't want him to resent it. Perhaps there was little call for that particular tangent but there won't be any harm done. After eighteen years of friendship I perhaps shouldn't be too concerned but naturally contientiousness cannot but be an ingredient in any such long-lasting association.

Quasi-Mojo doesn't believe in 'freindship' - only in 'friends'. Well, more accurately, he says he doesn't know what it means or involves. I think an exact quote would be: "Horse, it's about rules. The thing about it is that everyone makes up their own rules. You've got two things rampant in the consensus: you got bad rules, and you got people changing and breaking their own rules. Keep it simple. With me, what you see is what you get: my friendship is long and hairy and it flaps about. It fluctuates with my mood - I use it for love, but then again it might just pee on you - and everyone knows what they're likely to get from it. With me there is no friendship - there's the people whose bits you can see to be worth paying attention to and who don't mind looking at yours, and then there's everyone else." At this point, he stroked his friendship reassuringly and as he turned away gave me a funny look and said, "Why d'you think I call you horse?"

I've always been impressed when Q-M decides to venture a metaphor - but often rather than make a concept clearer, it just gets hazier, and most often that's actually the point. Somehow I derive some reassurance nonetheless - and if nothing else he makes me laugh.

In a more inexplicable dream, I went back to the Artane Boys Band to look around. The experience made me cry uncontrolably (if there is any other kind). And that one I really don't understand.

I on You

A girl with pink and black hair often crosses from D’olier street to College Green/Pearse Street with a gracefully equine (or so it seems to me - not everyone admires how horses walk like I do) gait at approximately 8:55 am on a weekday. I know this empirically thanks to the coupled phenomena of traffic lights and a routine. I also know that a woman of unmissably large frame who invariably wears black, rides her big (also black) bicycle with a basket on the front, down Lord Edward Street closer to 9:00 at least most weekdays. I also happen to know that she is on her way to the fifth floor of Trinity College Usher Library and that she plans on 'sshhh-ing' anyone who plans on communicating verbally while she’s up there. Furthermore, if such communications are not ceased (by sshhh-ing) I also know that she will (and has before) contact a security person because they can be more persuasive with their keys that rattle and their clunky shoes.

One of the interesting things for me about my awareness of certain aspects of the routines of these (to name but two) individuals, is that were I to speak to them, I'm quite sure that neither would say they have ever laid eyes on me (insofar as they could remember anyway) - and in the latter case, I'd have to say I'm quite happy to keep it that way.

Have you ever walked up to someone and said, "I've been seeing you around so often, I thought I'd come and say hello," and have them respond as if you had just landed from outerspace and greeted them in Klingon? I know someone told me that this happened to them but I can't remember who it was - which leads us to suppose that they are not very instantly striking or engaging and it's not much wonder that this sad story is their's.

So think about that (how does being didactic suit me?). There are people watching and thinking about you and you don't know they exist. Maybe a man, maybe a woman, maybe even a monkey...

Monkey Business

I went to eat in an Italian restaurant tonight with Quasi-Mojo. I had some food and some wine and he didn't order anything. He sat, he smoked, and he took a not-uncommon jab at my lifestyle. I thought what he had to say was interesting, though I'm not really in a position to address it as I can neither entirely refute his logic nor embrace his point of view. I don't think he wanted an answer from me anyway. The conversation went like this:

"I'll buy you something if you like" I said,
"I know you would," he replied. "I've been thinking about that for a while."
"What? You're playing it cryptic tonight?"
"Not at all. Let me ask you this: why would you buy me something?"
"Because you are my friend, I like you and I have the money, and I wouldn't mind giving it to you if you wanted something. This isn't being cryptic?"
"I'm good company?"
"Yes."
"I'm good company when I have something, and I'm bad company when I don't. Isn't that what you mean?"
"Well, I'd be more comfortable if you had something maybe, but I don't see..."
"I know that. But I had to make you admit that."
"I don't know where you're going with this Quasi-Mojo. Do you have a point?"
"You know I do Horse. Sad thing is, you know what it is but you won't address it."
"Well I don't know... fine... help me out here."
"You make money and you spend money because you are afraid. You are afraid to 'plumb the depths' as they say, of your experience. You fear being without. My being without reminds you and it scares you. As you said yourself, it makes you uncomfortable."
"I was just being..."
"No. sorry. I shouldn't let you come in here. Let me go on. Living my life of non-productivity and the poverty that leads to allows me to really feel who I am and what my needs are. You are too afraid to make that experiment and you secretly envy my doing it. You intend to live a life where you produce enough wealth to allow yourself to fulfill needs that you don't even know you have. You will work and acquire to meet the needs you've convinced yourself you have, while concertedly refusing to find out what your needs are. And - and this is a big 'and' - in an extravagent show of ignorance and irony you 'sympathise' with and are 'generous' to, the friends that actually have more than you. More courage. More knowledge. Less money. You envy them. You don't empathise with them and you are not generous toward them. You are trying to sabotage their pursuit because if they are more like you, you won't think about what you are missing, and if you can 'help' them, then you have justified your own misguided path to yourself. Think about it. The fit hits the shan. Who freaks out? The guy who has nothing to lose? Or the guy with the house on the hill? And it's not just the money that'll make you weak. Working for the man? No choice when to work or not to? Who owns your time? Who owns your life?"
"Listen, my defences are low tonight. But you're obviously missing something. "Who owns my time?" Who owns this salmon! The king of the swingers wanted to be like Mogli? Why wasn't it the other way around?"
"Is that a serious question?"
"Would I be happy being like you? Are you even happy being you?"
"Are you happy to know me?"
"Yes, but..."
"Do you love me?"
"Well..."
"Are you going to finish that salmon?"
"No. Go on. Take it."
"I'm glad we had this talk Horse. I feel better. I think we both feel better. I'm going to the can. Monkey business."

Victim Impact Report.

When I’m not doing whatever it is I do, my hobby is to ring the bells of Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. Quasi-Mojo usually hangs around outside if he comes along. The push factors of the belfry are that, on a practical level, the stone staircase to the belfry makes him uneasy (it’s “dark and itchy” apparently); and on a philosophical level, he thinks it’s unwise to institutionalise neuroses. The pull factors of the area outside that, on a practical level, there are things to clime on; and on a philosophical level, there’s a pussy-cat in the grounds with whom he has a special relationship (these two reasons are actually one and the same, as they say, and I note the misuse of the terms ‘practical’ and ‘philosophical’).

After rehearsal last night I went over to the pub for a couple of Cydona’s and some socialising even though I was a little tired and something in me just wanted to go home and have a nice bath. I caught up with Quasi-Mojo as I was walking back to where I had parked. He was leaning from the top of the fence smoking what was no-doubt a post-coital cigarette, and before I even got close to him, he yelled to me.

“It’s a treacherous world Horse! It’s a treacherous, sordid, and confounding planet. The seediest I’ve ever visited.”
“It could be worse my friend,” I responded, “tell me what’s happened. Did you break-up?”
He jumped down to walk with me.
“Hmm. Patronising, insensitive and unbecoming.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right Quasi-Mojo. Please accept my apology as I accept your admonishment, but something untoward has happened I presume. Pray tell comrade.”
“Well I’ve had some time to consider how to break it to you, and this is what I’ve come up with. It’s a Limerick.

I don’t like the way Buckley smells,
And a hunch-back could ring better bells.
You get on my nerves,
But you didn’t deserve
To get the back wheel of your bike with the new block that cost you forty five euro last week, nicked while you were across the road drinking two Cydonas and thinking you’d like to be in bed.”

“Aw crap. Seriously?”
“Yeah seriously, you really didn’t deserve it. Crappy ringing tonight by the way. How are we going to get home now?”

I got the bus to the scene of the crime today and brought with me an old wheel. I shared the journey with about twenty-five Spanish teens who made the journey quite uncomfortable for the rest of us who were vying for space, standing in the aisles trying to avoid the idiot with the bicycle wheel. As they stampeded off the bus one of them stopped in front of me (delaying her colleagues), put out her hand and said, “Conrazulasions.” Having allowed my surprise and reluctance to engage with her to register, I extended my bike-filth fingers to shake her hand and she said, “You are the only man in Dublin!” I didn’t respond verbally but did get visibly embarrassed. Some lady apologised to me on her behalf, and as I went to find a seat a guy said to me, “You should get off with her mate.” I did respond to that, but it was so mumbled that it won’t have made any sense to anyone.

When I got the wheel on the bike I shared an accomplished nod with Quasi-Mojo - not knowing but secretly feeling that it wasn’t going to work very well (which it hasn’t done). He jumped up on my back wrapping his arms around my neck and gleefully shouted, “Conrazulasions!”

Tram, Glam and Ham.

Last night I attended ‘An evening with Janet Street-Porter,’ with Jenny in the very lush Newman House on St. Stephen’s Green. Quasi-Mojo declined to be my plus one at the event. I'm sure he would have enjoyed nicking handbags, humping legs, dipping himself in the ice buckets and that kind of thing, but he just didn't go for it. In fact he dismissed it summarily with a brush of his hand, a look of disgust and the words, "So base. So rude."

Outside there was quite a cufuffle as people gathered to hop on board the very first public outings of the flashy new LUAS Tram. Like the event we attended, it was without charge and involved a lot of sitting around and wondering what everyone else was doing there. Both events would have had a similar exclusive feel that was tinctured only by the presence of certain conspicuous nobodies who are blatantly untalented at savoring a privileged position - and might i add, such shortcomings are not at all always a bad thing.

In many ways, the whole occasion was an opportunity to reflect on such issues of status and how it is won. Obviously we gain or lose status by the opinions of others, and in many ways it is not by merely achieving our own goals that we receive status, but - and this is particularly the case in the broad phenomenon known as 'the media' - by achieving the goals that other people have but can't meet themselves. So opinions are powerful. Janet Street-Porter (as she stated herself) "made a career out of having an opinion on everything." But what's so great about JSP's opinion? I suppose the answer is not in it qualitively but quantitively i.e. the fact that so many people heard it.

As was evident from the lame questions at the end; the fact that few people talked to her at the ensuing champagne reception (no strawberries or cheese: lousy penny-pinchers); and the very obvious reality of her being 25 years older than the average age of the audience; JSP was not up there because she was liked or even becasue she was that interesting, but because she could act as some excuse for up-and-coming-whatevers to come and shmoose and look pretty and influence some useful people. Only trouble was it seems, that no-one of any 'use' was actually there. Still, people looked pretty and there was free champagne.

Janet did say some things that were interesting (if not contemptible to jealous people like me). When discussing which medium she favours (radio,tv,print) she said that it was difficult to say because just like men, they all come with chips. This initially confusing metaphor became a little clearer as she went on. She meant gambling chips. She described how these chips are gradually lost and then they have nothing and it's time to go looking for some other chip-holder. She's been married four times. What a refreshing attitude!

I've found that if you wave at LUAS drivers, they wave back. I hope I'm not the only person who's going to do this, but I fear that if everyone waves there may be some anti-waving legislation passed by those lovely people we elected to government who look after our best interests.